


Last Friday Night

by invincibleironwoman



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Kid!Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 06:13:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/invincibleironwoman/pseuds/invincibleironwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John agreed to help Valerie out one Friday night, he was not expecting her to hand him a toddler.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Friday Night

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a little idea I had while watching the episode where Dorian teases John about being bad with kids. I played around a bit with Dorian's abilities and his autonomy, so bear with me. 
> 
> This is also my first fic in this fandom.

The call came at 5:30 to his cell phone. It was an unsuspecting call and John could almost say he was lured by its apparent innocence because it was a Friday and Stahl was calling so why would he have expected it to be anything horrible? Why would he think she wanted a favor from him that would be taxing and test the limits of their newfound friendship? In the end he realized he should have known better because when has anything good ever come from that phone ringing? 

“Kennex.” He answered gruffly. He’d just settled down to open a beer and watch… whatever was on the television. He rarely had this kind of time to himself when he wasn’t working or trying to recharge from working. He wondered what it must be like for Dorian who never rested when he wasn’t in his weird charging station mode. 

“Hi, John? It’s Valerie?” She started and it sounded like she was rummaging through something as she rested the phone on her shoulder. “I’m kind of in a pinch and I need a really huge favor? If you’re not super busy, of course.” 

John shifted on the couch and glanced at the beer on the end table and sighed to himself. He wasn’t the type to go out of his way to help coworkers on his time off unless he really knew them and Valerie was great but they weren’t “help you move on a Saturday”, “watch your cat when you’re out for a week”, “check on your mother while you’re away on vacation” close yet.

But fuck it; he literally had nothing better to do. “Uh, sure. What do you need?”

“Well, an old CI friend of mine needs prepping for a trial,” and John tuned out a bit as he fist pumped the air. Sure, he hadn’t wanted extra work tonight but this was possibly one of the easiest favors to ask of him considering it had nothing to do with trying to keep some creature alive. “And I totally forgot that I promised to babysit my sister’s daughter tonight. It was kind of a last minute thing, family emergency and I would normally never ask but would you mind—“

“Say no more.” He said smirking to himself and yet fully aware that if Dorian were present, he wouldn’t have let him get away with such a cheeseball line. “I’m in.”

“Great! You’re a lifesaver! I’ll bring her right over.” And she hung up leaving John feeling like he’d done his good deed for the day and possibly convinced Valerie of his kindhearted nature or whatever. All in all, minus Dorian’s video footage of the coffee he drenched himself in earlier that day, it was one of his better days. 

 

 

When the knock came, John was dressed, the beer was back in the fridge and any of his bare bones valuables were locked away in a safe. Seeing Valerie and a small curly ball of blonde hair made him double take before he figured the CI must be in the car downstairs or something. He waved awkwardly at the small creature before shrugging at Valerie.

The usually put together analyst looked frazzled for the first time since John had met her. She was digging through a diaper bag and seemed to be checking for items she ticked off a list on her phone. “Okay, bottles, food, diapers, toys… toys… toys! I forgot toys. All I have is this stupid squeaky toy. Why do they even have these for none canine beings. This must get really old after like 2 minutes.” She glanced up at him and smiled apologetically. “Sorry.”

John shook his head and shrugged it off. “Doesn’t matter to me. Kids can entertain themselves with pretty much anything.” He glanced at the time on her phone and wondered what was taking the CI so long. 

When Valerie handled over the ball of child and the bag he took them blankly as she stuttered out something about checking the car for toys. “I’ll be right back.” He stood there with the kid staring up at him with lifeless green eyes. It was a bit like holding miniature MX the way she seemed both disinterested and unimpressed. He held it stiffly away from his body and within minutes her face started to scrunch up and turn red and he panicked, for just a moment before she started wailing. 

“Whoa! Hey, hey, hey, calm down kid. She’ll be right back, I promise. Then you’ll be going far, far away from here.” Seeing the waterworks weren’t stopping he started pacing the apartment, bouncing her a bit up and down and promptly stopping when that just created a weird Doppler effect. “Okay, okay, what do people do when these things start crying?” Why can’t they be more like androids with a convenient off-switch or a volume button? Or maybe just androids that aren’t Dorian and get offended when John treats him like an object that needs an electrical outlet. 

He was still talking to the child when Valerie reappeared empty handed and he was so distracted he didn’t check to see if the CI had shown up behind her. He tried bouncing her again just out of sheer dedication to his ego. He was not going to be outsmarted by a baby. He was better than that. 

Valerie was smiling awkwardly, probably just trying to figure out a comfortable way to say “Hey, John, you’re scaring the crap out of my niece. Put her down before she busts a lung”, he thought. “Uh, you’ll get the hang of it, I promise!” She pet the kid on the head, gave it a kiss and with one last grateful glance at John she left.

She just left him there. With the kid. 

“Hey, hey! Valerie! What!” He started before he realized he’d waited a bit too long and she was probably in stairwell unable to hear him. He shuffled to the door, holding the kid inelegantly against his side, transferring the screaming to his left ear, as he opened the front door. “Yep, she’s gone.” He started to close the door when Dorian appeared down the hall. “Yep, this night could not possibly get better. I mean the only thing that could improve this night even more for me would be the Captain assigning me to give Detective Paul a prostate exam.”

At that, Dorian made a full stop in the middle of the hallway. “You should not be saying that kind of stuff around a baby, man.” He came closer and peered at the red-faced infant screaming against John’s hip. 

“What are you doing here, Dorian?” The screaming was reaching higher frequencies. It was seriously started to get to him. He had started to forget what life had been like before she started crying. 

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the child screaming in your arms. Who in their right mind would give you a baby?” He complained and his head cocked to the side twice, three times as if the screaming was starting to interfere with his circuitry. 

“It won’t stop crying!” He adjusted his grip and held her out in front of him again. Her entire face was red now, snot coming out of her nose. Why do people find these things appealing again? “Jesus, if she doesn’t stop, I’m about to start.”

The door closed and John was only mildly disappointed to see which side Dorian ended up on. “Here, give her to me.” He reached over and picked her up, not giving John much of a say in the matter. To his credit, John was pretty certain the next words out of his mouth wouldn’t have been “No, stop, please, I treasure her company.”

Almost immediately, as if John had been wrong and the new babies of his time came with off switches, she stopped wailing. Instead, she hiccupped a few times and sat there on Dorian’s arm, and of course the bastard knew the right way to hold an infant, staring up at him. Her big green eyes were wide and intrigued and, upon further inspection, it didn’t exactly lessen the blow to John’s ego to find out she was just staring at the blue lights shimmering along the DRN’s temple. 

“See, you’re okay. John’s just a bit unpleasant. Don’t worry, he has that effect on most people.” He explained, leaning closer to her and smiling and didn’t it just sting when she returned it with her own toothless grin. He looked up at John with the familiar smug look on his face. “It’s not rocket science.”

“Shut up. How did you get here anyway?” John asked, going over to the couch to retrieve the brat’s bag. Hopefully there was something in there like a collar because John obviously hadn’t been paying attention to Valerie’s conversation if he’d missed her telling him this was what his Friday night would look like. He was never doing favors for anyone else ever again. Unless they were sexy favors. God, maybe not even then. He’d hate to see how those could go wrong. 

“There was a spike in your heart rate.” And John just about leapt out of his skin when Dorian appeared behind him. 

“Christ, Dorian!” John snapped as Dorian took over looking through the bag. What he was looking for, God only knew, because John wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with a kid for three or four hours. He figured it might be too naïve to hope she’d just sleep the whole time. “You just sit in your… pod and monitor my vitals all night?”

“No. You left a box blank in your paperwork today and so, I called and when you didn’t answer I tuned into your vitals.” He looked up at him, judgmental blue eyes and what did it say about John that they didn’t even faze him anymore. “I’m your partner, John. I’m supposed to check in. I called a cab and it brought me here.” 

“Well it’s creepy, so stop it.” Now the judgmental eyes and the unimpressed head tilt… which, when accompanied by a child mimicking it, was quite unnerving. Dorian resumed digging through the bag and she started playing with the zipper on his jacket. “Look, I didn’t think this was what Valerie had in mind when she asked me for a favor so I didn’t really ask for this.”

“You hear the word favor from a gorgeous woman and jump to very different conclusions than I do.” He shot John an amused glance. “You totally asked for this.”

“Again, shut up.” John slumped over the arm of the couch and buried his face in the couch cushions. It wouldn’t look very good if he decided to drink his beer now. The lesson here was to never answer his phone on a Friday night. 

Dorian sat down a little ways away from him on the couch and set the child in his lap. “What’s your name, sweetheart?” He looked over at John, obviously expecting him to answer. At the lack of response, he poked John in the back of the head and a she imitated him with a slap on his ear. 

“Ow. I don’t know, alright! I wasn’t paying close enough attention.” When she smacked him again he sighed in resignation. 

Dorian did his version of a sigh since he didn’t really breathe and scanned his brain for ideas. “Okay, well she looks to be about two or three years of age and the most popular girls names during that time period were Sophia?” She stared up at him. “Emma?” Still staring at him. “Isabella?” Still staring. 

“This is going to go on forever.” John groaned into the cushion and he received another smack on the back of his head from a hand way to big to be hers. 

“Olivia?” At the blushing smile he received Dorian guessed he was either right or she’d just gotten enjoyment out of watching him hit John in the head. Either way, he considered it a victory. “Okay, Olivia. What would you like to do?” 

At the extended silence, John got up on his elbows and stared at the two of them with a sense of foreboding settling over him. Dorian had leaned in close to her and whispered something that made he smile. When she started laughing, John got seriously scared. 

She climbed over the bot and started crawling on the couch and when she was inches away from John, she growled and launched herself at his face. He didn’t have to fake being scared as he was genuinely frightened as her tiny palms latched onto his cheeks. “Dorian! What’s happening?” He tried to scoot backwards off the couch without knocking her over and his supposed partner was laughing it up on the other end of the couch just watching them. When the fists climbed into his hair and started pulling he sighed. “Okay, that’s it. Baby or no baby I am making your life a living hell, come Monday morning.” He pushed forward, arms out to keep her from falling off the couch and heard almost maniacally giggling from above. 

Her laughing turned into wheezing the more he pushed his head into her hands until she’d almost laughed herself off the sofa. Midway through he’d stopped legitimately growling and started making animal noises because it made her laugh harder. When she released his hair he opened his eyes to see Dorian had picked her up again and held her up in the air. And John wasn’t slightly disappointed at all. Or at least he’d never admit it. 

He seemed to be scanning her as she smiled and reached for his face. “We’re going to have a problem in about twenty minutes unless you can find food for her. She hasn’t eaten in something like four hours.”

At this John leapt at the chance for something he could actually do. “Food! I can find that. I think Valerie left some in the bag. We just need to heat it up, grab a spoon and feed her. How hard can that be?”

 

 

“If there is a word for how I feel right now, I haven’t found it.” Dorian explained, staring at Olivia as she stared back at him, completely unmoved. He tried once more to get the mush of bland carrots into her mouth but for once his quick reflexes weren’t helping him. She just turned her head to the side, made a whining noise and got a smear of orange muck on her cheek. “I can process information at a rate 300% faster than humans, I have access to the internet’s entire database on infant care and my reflexes should easily surpass hers, why is this so difficult?” 

John was biting his lip trying not to laugh at the android, which was odd because he usually jumped at the chance to make fun of Dorian; he rarely got the chance. He just felt like if he made a wisecrack right now, just one, he’d finally get to see what it looked like when an android lost it. For all his patience and can-do attitude, Dorian seemed to be slowing down to a sluggish pace that couldn’t possibly mean anything good. 

He reached over and let Olivia grab onto his hand, sneaking looks at the side of Dorian’s face when he felt he could get away with it. “S’fine Dorian. Maybe she’s just not that hungry.”

Shrugging as best he could and still looking unnaturally robotic, “That’s ridiculous. She hasn’t eaten in over four hours. She should want to eat. It’s in all the information I found, even the stuff written by the most… unorthodox parenting manuals.” He frowned thinking of the stuff about parents only feeding their kids food grown in “peaceful, spiritual environments” and beams of rainbows. He was quite sure Valerie’s sister wouldn’t be a part of that movement. 

“You may be new at this whole human thing but we don’t always do what books say we’re gonna do. We’re real frustrating that way.” He smiled when Olivia started pulling at his hand until she started putting in her mouth. “Or maybe this little monster’s a cannibal.”

“Don’t do that.” Dorian started to take John’s hand out of her gummy mouth, getting bits of carrot on his own hand for his troubles. Unfortunately, she decided to treat it like a game. A really boring one by the looks of it where the only goal was to put John’s hand in her mouth before Dorian could stop her. “He can’t taste very good.”

“Hey!” 

Rolling his eyes, because that gesture he’d mastered, Dorian finally succeeded in getting her to let his partner go and he’d started wiping her face with a baby wipe. “What are you even arguing for here?”

Sighing, John picked up the cooked carrots and tried a spoonful himself. “Ugh, no wonder she doesn’t want this stuff. It’s disgusting.” 

Olivia started laughing as his sputtering and clapping her carrot covered hands together. “’Gusting!” And John started chanting with her, as infantile as it made him feel it was worth it for the frustration on Dorian’s face. 

“John.” It sounded like a warning but for the life of him, John couldn’t figure out what for. He set the food down on the counter and crossed his arms. “We have to feed her.”

Someday, he promised, he would find out just what it was about Dorian’s face that made him nervous when the android looked at him like that. Like he was both disappointed and unsurprised that John was taking pleasure in his annoyance. Standing up straighter, the man rubbed the back of his neck and studied Olivia’s mush mess. “Okay… food. Well, when I was little, my mom used to mash up whatever we’d had for dinner that night either in a bowl or by food processor and feed it to me. Tasted loads better than that over-processed, flavorless crap.”

Smiling a bit at the personal story, Dorian got to the point. “I’m guessing a man like you—“

“A man like me?” He asked distractedly as Olivia was once again attempting to chew on his hand. 

“Who doesn’t seem to own more than one glass, plate or piece of silverware, would own a food processor?” And damn him for the smug smile on his face.

“Maybe not but all we need is a fork and a bowl – and shut up, I do own a fork.” At Dorian’s subtle laughter he corrected himself. “Forks. I own forks. Just go find something edible in the fridge while I deal with mini!Hannibal.” 

He knelt down by her booster seat at the dining room table. “Listen up, in the future, you’re not gonna be able to chew on people without it looking weird. And you don’t want be that kid do you?” She stared up at him with big green eyes and a toothless frown. “Just some friendly advice, kid. No need to get all bent out of shape about it. Come on, let’s go bug Dorian. He thinks he’s Gordon Ramsey.” She giggled at that and lifted her arms up for him.

“Dorian!” She screamed and when John laughed at her she did it again and again until she started playing with John’s hand again.

Dorian had managed to find some potatoes and had started peeling them. He must’ve heard John enter the kitchen because he pointed the knife at the island muttering, “There’s some yogurt on the counter. Grab a spoon. I’m going to make some mashed potatoes.” 

He was halfway to the silverware drawer before he realized he’d started following directions without even questioning it. “You never make food for me.”

“And now you’re jealous of an infant. How did I luck out when I got you for a partner?” But he was smiling and, as he reluctant as he was to admit it, it gave John a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach.

 

 

It went a bit better the second time as soon as Olivia realized the mashed potatoes were actually good and she actually was hungry. She’d finished her food rather quickly, laughing in between bites when John pretended to fight her for her food. She slowed down and started yawning a bit shortly after and Dorian picked her up and brought her over to the couch.  
John’s phone started vibrating and he scurried away to answer it. “Kennex.”

“Hey, John. It’s Valerie? I was calling to see how it was going?” He could hear a restaurant in the background. “I’m almost finished up here. I’ve got my CI prepped and now we’re just eating a late dinner.”

He glanced at the couch where Olivia was curled up on Dorian’s chest. Really, it kind of amazed John how easy she was around Dorian. He looked human enough when you weren’t looking to closely but anyone could tell he was an android. It wasn’t just his electric blue eyes, the way his temple lit up when he was working or the way he would stare almost unnaturally long before his programming let him know a human would blink more often. It wasn’t even the way his colloquial routine didn’t always hold up and he sometimes said things, really meaningful things a man would never say to another man unless they were a completely different sort of partners. It was his attempts to be human that made Dorian so obviously inhuman. He was consistently trying to find the good in a society of people that treated him like he’d never fit in, not truly, not the way he wanted to. He looked to them to be examples of good and morality and they, or maybe just John, were consistently letting him down. But he never gave up hope and he never would by the looks of it. 

He was so obviously inhuman and that didn’t matter to Olivia. She had been taken with Dorian from the moment she’d laid eyes on him and she refused to let him out of her sight. Even the short while he’d been with her while Dorian washed dishes had made her flush and her mouth scrunched up before John rushed over and offered to wash up. To her, Dorian’s lack of human qualities didn’t mean she couldn’t like him or feel safe around him.

He didn’t understand it and he wished he could say it was because he didn’t understand why someone would choose to hang out with Dorian over himself but that would be a lie. He understood perfectly. Dorian was kind, patient, and even funny and rather than be jealous, John just resented how much he liked being around him. At first it was familiarity as he got used to Dorian being around and after that, it was actually resigned affection for him. Somehow he’d stopped being annoying and started being someone John didn’t want to replace with another MX or a stranger simply because they’d be human. Dorian was kind of it for him at the moment. 

No, he didn’t understand how she could feel so safe around him within minutes of meeting him. And didn’t someone say kids were excellent judges of character? Was that someone Dorian? It took weeks for John to trust Dorian and that was on accident after he dozed off during a stakeout. Olivia was napping with him, on top of him, having only known him for hours. 

He watched the small infant’s head start to droop on Dorian’s chest until it stayed there and her eyes closed. Maybe Dorian was her off button? Maybe she was still the strangest tiny human John had ever met. 

“John?” Valerie asked nervously and it sounded like she’d been asking for a while now. “Was it terrible?”

“Oh! No! No, I promise. Everything was fine.” He was still watching Olivia’s chest rise and fall as Dorian was still as ever and something inside of John’s chest was warmly chipping away at the ice that had settled there. He choked on a laugh. “Dorian’s got quite a knack with kids. Who knew?”

“That’s great! I’m sure he has an advantage Igby doesn’t have.” She added. 

“Igby?” He was only half paying attention because Dorian’s eyes had been closed for quite sometime and his mouth was slightly open. Just enough that John was struck again with how straight and white his teeth were. Perfectly crafted in the way they sometimes bit down on his lips, his pink lips when he pretended to consider ideas outwardly to appear more natural. It didn’t accomplish anything as all it did was make John wonder what it’s be like if he bit down on Dorian’s lip. If it’d be soft, if it’d feel like his own lips. How much work did Dorian’s creator put into making him look and feel like a human. 

After all, John already had first hand knowledge about the efforts he’d gone through in giving Dorian all the essential male appendages. 

“My MX? He goes by a number but they’re just so formal. I know he’s not quite in touch with his feelings on the same level that Dorian is but it just seems wrong acting like they’re kitchen appliances, you know?”

“I guess.” And he did know but that didn’t mean he should start kissing them either. 

“I’ll be over in about an hour to pick her up, okay? And thanks again, John.”

He started to tell her it was no problem but she’d already hung up. When he glanced up, he saw Olivia was still sleeping quietly on Dorian who was… also sleeping? John shuffled over and crouched down at the arm of the couch. This close he could see how real the android’s skin looked. He’d touched it before; usually out of necessity but once to slap Dorian’s hand away when he’d thought John’s flush was due to fever and not anger. He’d never really taken the time to explore it and experiment with the different textures from Dorian’s face, his arms, and his hands…. He swallowed and figured he’d better stop this line of questioning before his vitals spiked again and Dorian woke up from whatever he was doing now. 

“Dorian? Are you actually…?” His breath caught as a pair of bright blue eyes opened slowly. They locked on him with that usual, unnatural level of focus. “What are you doing?”

Dorian smirked a little, embarrassed. “I read that children mimic behavior. I close my eyes: she closes her eyes. I ‘sleep’: she sleeps.” He explained and John smiled a bit before standing up again. He thought he had been doing a good job covering up the slight soreness in his leg but apparently not if the frown on Dorian’s face was anything to go by. 

“What?” He asked defensively and Dorian gestured at the seat next to him on the couch. 

“You should really sit down.” At the defiant look on John’s face, he shook his head and smiled at the screen. It blinked on, volume lowered immediately and John sighed in defeat. “You know, it’s not the worst thing in the world letting someone else take care of you. Even if I’m just a ‘kitchen appliance’.” 

He cocked an eyebrow at the wince on John’s face. It was quiet for a moment, just the mumbled sounds of a news reporter on the screen before John spoke. “You know, listening to my phone calls is pretty creepy.”

“Watching me while I sleep is pretty creepy. A lot has changed while I was out but that’s still weird, right?” He quipped, that smirk on his face. The one John remembered when he was driving home from his shift and trying to remember all the reasons he couldn’t quit now. Not just getting revenge for his partner or making his father proud or finding out if his memories were real; no, part of it was because he knew how much getting to be a cop again meant to Dorian. And yeah, part of it was how good it felt to make him happy. 

“Not if you weren’t actually sleeping. Then you were watching me watching you not sleep.” He muttered back, sinking into the couch further. It was warmer in the den now and he didn’t know if that was Dorian hacking into the thermostat or Dorian’s presence in general. 

“Shut up and go to sleep before your last remaining brain cell overworks itself.” And John hated himself a little less than usual when he obeyed without complaint. 

 

He woke up alone. It was only ten o’clock but Dorian wasn’t next to him on the couch anymore and he couldn’t hear or see Olivia anywhere near by. Maybe because he was in his bed and not on the couch at all. He shot up and peered out into the dark. “Dorian?” He called nervously. 

It was a few seconds before the bot came into his view empty handed. “Hey, Valerie came by to pick up Olivia. I was about to head out. You need something?”

“I… no. How did I get here?” He glanced around the bed and noticed that his leg had been put up in the charging station and he was under the covers. 

Dorian shifted a bit, a nervous tick he didn’t have. “It’s not good for you to sleep on the couch like that, man. You were going to get a crick in your neck and your leg was going to be stiff in the morning.”

“You carried me.” He answered to himself. “And if that wasn’t humiliating enough, you put me to bed like a child? You know, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Boundaries, Dorian. That’s part of being human.”

“You carry me all the time, man.”

“If you’re talking about the one time you were in a hostage situation and you’d been shot several times—“ He grimaced as he sat up a bit straighter. There was always a slight shift in his balance when his leg was removed. 

“I mean not just in the field. I need help with something and I don’t even have you ask you for help—not that you’d give it to me if I did – but you help me. You 'carry me'.”

“Not literally!” He felt ridiculous shouting at him while he was still tucked into bed. Jesus, had Dorian actually tucked the ends of the comforter below the mattress?

“What does it matter?” At John’s scoffing, he sat down on the bed a ways away and looked down at his hands. After a moment he smiled up at John and added, “If this is about your manly image I gotta say, that went out the window the second you chased Olivia around making kitten noises.” 

John surprised them both by laughing. “Hey, I was a very convincing kitten.”

“You were, man.” He laughed and it wasn’t the first time John was struck by how real and warm it sounded. It used to annoy him when he did things that lured John into forgetting that he wasn’t human. Especially now when he was started to forget all the reasons that simple fact mattered. “Why is this such a big deal?”

John sighed and lay back down against his pillows. “Just don’t do it again, okay?”

“I can’t promise that.” Dorian admitted, eyes returning to his hands. 

“Fine.” Then John found himself saying, “Don’t go.”

Dorian stared at him through the dim lighting from the window. “What?”

“Don’t waste department resources on a cab. I’ll just take you back in the morning. You don’t have to recharge or whatever, right?”

“As offensive as that is, no.” He lay back across the foot of John’s bed. “Thanks, man.”

“You could lie down next to me instead of cutting off my circulation.” He snarked. He didn’t realize how tense he was until he felt his mattress sink down and Dorian came to lie down at his side.

“You know, you drooled on me earlier?” His blue eyes were bright in the darkness of John’s room. 

“I’m sure I didn’t but I’m also sure that, if I did, you definitely deserved it.” He closed his eyes and swallowed down the warm feeling he felt when Dorian laughed at him. 

“For what?”

“For helping that little brat attack me.” He was laughing too and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this good. It seemed he spent most of his down time either trying to dig up whatever he could on his partner’s case or trying and failing to fall asleep. Maybe Dorian was his off button too? 

He turned his head to the side to add another comment when Dorian pushed forward and kissed him. Or tried to; it was more like a teenager trying to figure out how two mouths were supposed to move together. He covered John’s lips directly and didn’t leave a lot of room for movement. 

He was sitting up on his elbow, pushing back into it before he even realized he was moving at all. He grasped the nape of Dorian’s neck and pulled him closer, closer until the bot was pressing him into the bed. He didn’t know if his mouth was warm from reflecting John’s body heat or if that was all Dorian. The weight pressing him down should’ve felt overbearing but it didn’t and Dorian’s small noises of confusion should’ve made John pull away but they didn’t. His mouth fell open and Dorian experimentally swiped his tongue inside. It was all new and awkward the way John’s first kiss had been.

John pulled back and blinked up at Dorian, blurting out “This is your first kiss, isn’t it?” And when Dorian nodded his head and dropped his eyes to John’s mouth, studying it like if he was trying to figure out how to do it right. John couldn’t figure out if he found that hot or not.

“Is this okay?” He asked and when had he asked John for permission to do anything lately? Still the detective was nodding before he’d really decided what he wanted. 

When he pulled Dorian down to him again, hands on his back, John was finally sure. If begin with Dorian mad him feel like this, all those silly reasons not to seemed pointless. 

He didn’t remember the second time he fell asleep nor did he remember Dorian curling up beside him and just… being as the bot didn’t actually sleep. And that’s okay because John doesn’t think he would have actually minded. 

 

Valerie found John and Dorian the next morning with a bright grin on her face. She surprised him with a hug and one for Dorian, too. “Thank you guys so much for last night. Olivia won’t shut up about you two.”

And she would have left it at that except Dorian had to press her for more details. “Really? What’s she saying?”

Shuffling past him, John started to say “Dorian, we have actual police work to do—“

“She told her mom that “Kitty” and Dorian played games with her all night before Dorian had to carry his princess to bed.” She grinned like she didn’t realize the sheer mortification John was experiencing and he really didn’t think she could be this cruel. “Thanks for putting her to sleep by the way. She usually hates the car seat unless she’s knocked out.”

She left with Igby and John turned to see Dorian was just as stunned as he was. “I wasn’t the princess?” he could barely say it. “Right?”

“I read her a story, one of those old fairytales and I guess she thought that made you the … children are really very perceptive, you know?” John didn’t have to tell him how lucky he was that he didn’t finish that statement. 

He chose not to respond and pushed past Dorian again towards their desks. His day was off to an excellent start. Really. It had nowhere to go but up at this rate. 

“And you are pretty, John. That is undeniable.” Dorian added, that familiar insufferable smirk on his face again. It just so happened that John usually wanted to kiss it more than punch it right now, which only irritated him more. 

He smiled sweetly at the android sitting on the corner of his desk. “Dorian, if you keep talking you can tell her about how sad the princess was after her prince was mysteriously shoved into oncoming traffic.” 

And when Dorian returned his smile with a genuine one full of warmth, with bright blue eyes, John found that he didn’t mind at all.


End file.
